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The HPV files: In emails, Perry mostly absent

By BEN SMITH

08/17/2011 10:42 AM EDT

My colleague Byron Tau and I filed a Public Information Act request with the State of Texas last month for correspondence related to the decision to vaccinate girls in the state against the disease HPV, and about 700 pages of internal email correspondence arrived rather promptly yesterday.

The HPV debate is one of the most interesting of Perry's tenure, and it's been covered in great depth in the Texas press. The most immediate controversy comes from some social conservatives who believe vaccinating against a sexually-transmitted disease would encourage sex; but that argument is a bit of a distraction from other criticism Perry took. Texas was the first state in the nation to mandate vaccinations with the drug, and USA Today, for instance, editorialized against it, praising the drug but warning that the "rush to make it mandatory, less than eight months after FDA approval, could have detrimental consequences."

And the more interesting political and substantive debate may concern how Perry made his decision. He never strayed from the simple case that he was fighting cancer, but critics wondered whether Merck's political contributions and hiring of a lobbyist close to him had helped.

The Statesman, in 2007, wrote up the same email pile we were given, and noted that the process seemed rushed and that there was a bit of communication with Merck, but nothing really striking.

And the email cache offers outsiders a bit of insight into how Perry's operation works, and to one particularly striking fact: Perry himself was almost entirely absent from the implementation of this key decision. His own emails appear in only one thread in the entire 700 page cache: On February 6, 2007, as the initiative was rolling out, he received a supportive email from a friend, which he forwarded to his wife, Anita, under the heading, "fyi."

Anita Perry responded, "Tammy Cotten Hartnett told me at lunch today that she would help you with some conservative groups," referring to a prominent Dallas Republican.

Perry then forwarded the thread to his deputy chief of staff, Kathy Walt: "Fwd to the correct folks in the office."

The documents give almost no other glimpses of Perry's decision-making. By the time the emails begin in August of 2006, the decision seems a fait accompli, and staffers never refer to Perry's own views on specifics, though in October 24 emails they consider a request from the Governor's office on how to structure the vaccination program to avoid turning it into a permanent Medicaid responsibility.

The emails are most useful in giving a glimpse at Perry's collegial staffers, at times under siege and amused by their own unusual position of being attacked from the right. They are combative and engaged and, contrary to Perry's public strategy of ignoring the press and even skipping editorial board meetings in his last campaign, they read the clips.

“This is awesome," then Perry speechwriter Eric Bearse wrote on top of a supportive column from Republican consultant Royal Masset in the Quorum report.

Another aide, Nora Belcher, forwarded on praise from DallasBlog -- "required reading, btw" -- and added, "and we made Time Magazine."

And Perry's chief spokesman, Robert Black, even forwarded around an editorial from the Statesman, not a typical ally.

“Well... we have one friend,” he wrote.

"That’s a fair-weather friend- - but a better one that we have seen over the past few days," Walt replied.

The emails also convey the sheer intensity of the argument, and the staffers' personal engagement.

"I got hammered in church this morning on the Merck thing – and it was just Saturday. Do we have any talking points or stats or anything that can hep me fight through Sunday?" asked Perry executive clerk Greg Davidson of his colleagues, under the heading "help" on February 3. "This is brutal."

"Are they hammering you on the 'we're saying its ok to have sex' part or the 'government telling us what to do with our kids' part??" a press aide, Nora Belcher responded, providing a rebuttal: “A woman who remains a virgin until she gets married can get HPV from her new husband, who may not even know he has it, and then get cervical cancer. There are still plenty of good reasons to stay abstinent.

Emailed Walt: "THIS IS ABOUT PREVENTING CANCER. THIS IS NOT ABOUT SEX."

The aides were dismissive of the notion that the policy was a favor to the drugmaker.

Brandon LeBlanc, the governor's community affairs public liaison, forwarded to fellow senior staffers an article quoting critics' who "point out that the legislation right now benefits just one pharmaceutical firm, Merck & Co."

"Please give the number of the poor little pharmaceutical firm that thinks this is unfair," he quipped.

Perry staff decided not to turn the fight into a national crusade, however. On February 2, an aide fielded a request for him to appear on the Today Show.

“Decline this," Black responded seven minutes later.

In the meantime, Perry seems to have been vindicated on the question of whether he rushed into a policy other states would never embrace: The National Council of State Legislatures reports that 20 states now have some legislation regarding the vaccine.